Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flexible protective guide for guiding the behaviors of flexible cables and/or ducts to a given path, while protecting the cables and/or ducts, the cables and/or ducts connecting a fixed side of a machine in which the protective guide is installed to a movable side of the machine to transmit electrical signals therebetween or transfer a physical medium therebetween, and relates to a bracket used for the protective guide. In particular, the present invention relates to a flexible protective guide preferable for an application in which cables and/or ducts are bent for connection between a fixed side of a machine in which the protective guide is installed and a movable side of the machine, and relates to brackets used for the protective guide.
Related Art
It is well known that various machines available today are provided with a movable member, such as a linear actuator or a robot, which is connected, for actuation, to a member on a fixed side (hereinafter referred to as a fixed member) of the machine. In most of such machines, energy, such as electrical power, control signals and/or air, are required to be transferred to the movable member from the fixed member via cables and/or ducts (hereinafter just referred to as cables). Since the cables are connected between the fixed member and the movable member, it is important to guide the movement of the cables to a desired path, with the protection of the cables.
In order to take measures against these problems, JP-A-2001-514725 suggests a cable protective member. The protective member is configured by segments each of which is formed by injection-molding a synthetic resin into a flat one-piece structure. These segments are mutually connected via bendable bridges so that the protective member is foldable.
However, in the foldable cable protective member of JP-A-2001-514725, each segment is provided by injection-molding a synthetic resin into a one-piece flat structure. Therefore, the injection-molded segments have to be folded one by one and the folded segments have to be assembled. Thus, troublesome work is involved in the assemblage. It is desirable that both ends of the protective member are detachably connected to the fixed frame and the movable frame of a machine installing the protective member. However, since the protective member obtained by folding and assembling the segments has a complicated structure, the brackets used for connecting the protective member to the frames necessarily have a complicated structure. Accordingly, lots of troublesome work is involved in mounting the brackets to the protective member. Moreover, in spite of low efficiency processes, the resultant connection of the protective member to the frames is unstable, allowing the protective member to easily come off from the frames.